Overwatch’s new McCree buff is a lot bigger than it seems

The latest Overwatch PTR has brought some new features big enough to overshadow the balance changes, but there’s a McCree buff in there that players are starting to take notice of. The gunslingers has gotten a small boost to his fire recovery time, but it’s a bigger deal than it appears – even if it’s not quite as flashy as the new replay feature.

McCree’s primary fire recovery time has been reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0.4 seconds. In the developer comments, Blizzard says “On average, McCree’s damage output wasn’t quite making up for the relatively low mobility or utility in his kit. Reducing his weapon’s recovery time improves the potential damage output without affecting the number of successful shots to kill an enemy.”

That fraction of a second might not seem like much, but as Dexerto notes, players soon found the difference obvious – the comparison GIFs are night and day. If you actually look at the numbers, like the folks on Reddit did, it makes more sense. That slight boost in recovery time means McCree’s DPS has increased from 140 to 175 (not accounting for reloads).

It remains to be seen if this buff will hit the live game in its current form, but it might soon be high noon in Overwatch. Check out the full PTR notes for yourself.